


King of the Barbers

by Dolevalan



Category: Sweeney Todd - Sondheim/Wheeler
Genre: Gen, repost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-13
Updated: 2006-07-13
Packaged: 2018-04-05 05:16:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4167357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dolevalan/pseuds/Dolevalan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nope. It was the Pope. (An origin story.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	King of the Barbers

There was a scrap of paper in the gutter, caught in a pile of rags. Danny saw it just before he was about to empty the bowl of water over the day’s accumulated dregs. Lord knew he didn’t need to be reaching his hand in the muck, but he’d been having a long day. Mother of god, he’d been having a long three years. He’d been having a long life, come to think of it. So the lanky young man, barely out of his teens, sat on the curb and unfolded the grubby paper and hoped against hope it would give him a laugh.  
  
He didn’t laugh. He just read the paper three times in a row and then folded it, slipping it in his threadbare vest, and upending the washbasin before Mr. Poundstone started to bellow. There had been no shortage of noise in Danny’s past, but lord strike him if he’d ever heard a man with a pair of pipes to match Poundstone when he was roused. And besides, there was still the hair to sweep up. What good was hiring an Irishman if you didn’t order them about, eh?  
  
The sun couldn’t make it past the smog, though Danny’s room was as close to heaven as he could get, just under the roof. The heat made it where the sun didn’t, and he opened a couple buttons on his shirt, disposing of his vest altogether. In the years since he’d come to London, he’d never felt truly comfortable anywhere, tossed from one scrap of poor luck to another. He flopped on the ragged excuse for a mattress. There had been Mr. Golden, who had tried to whittle away at his wages until he was practically working for free, then refused to give him a raise or a reference when he walked out. There had been Mr. Barker, who was a good but naïve man who didn’t know how to watch his own neck. There had been Mr. Asher, who’d wanted things that proper gentlemen didn’t ask for, but young immigrant lads were supposed to take. And Mr. Poundstone, whose voice could cause low-level earthquakes. And in none of these had Danny seen one glimmer of the possibility he saw in this scrap of paper.  
  
It read:  
  
 _Exotic remedy from Naples cures men of hair loss! Modern day Fiagaro ensures business for Italian barbers with miracle elixir._  
  
The article clipping, probably from a trade journal, went on to explain the circumstances of the discovery, describe the barber, and end on a rather skeptical note, despite its sensational headline. But that didn’t matter. Danny pulled out a stub of a pencil and circled the words “miracle elixir.”   
  
He’d been waiting for the past eight years to see the way out of Fleet Street. And suddenly there it was. Getting up, he moved to look in the window, trying to get a glimpse of his reflection. He needed to eat, and he would certainly need better clothes. But those could come with money. First, he needed a product.   
  
No. First, he needed a name. He already knew what his product was.  
  
For a week, he played with sounds in his head, while he was sweeping up hair or cleaning the blades. He tried to make ordinary names exotic, or to recombine normal sounds in new ways. Two things he had decided: nothing like his own name, and nothing like the name of the barber in the article. He didn’t need to be jogging any memories.  
  
The first name came to him in as providential a way as the article had. He was assisting (a term that here meant hovering in the background until Poundstone barked for something) as one of the barber’s chattier clients prattled on about the opera he was going to see that night with a woman, who Danny presumed was his mistress. The tenor was one Adolfo Santini; the name spoke of power, and force of personality. Danny studied his battered brown boots, trying not to smile. He couldn’t just nick the whole name; someone would notice. But Adolfo… that would do. That would do quite well.  
  
He had been tinkering with bottles and liquids for some time. Hand-lettered labels would be a bit suspicious, but he had an answer for that; the formula was so secret he had to mix each bottle by hand. Factories were still suspicious enough to decry, and no assurance of quality. His handwriting was good enough, in any event. The bottles he’d managed to gather were small, brown, and almost an approximately uniform size and shape. Nothing like digging through the garbage to find treasure. The light in his room was bad, but he managed to label each bottle to his satisfaction. He’d also nicked some hair clippings and made himself a fake moustache. He felt it added credibility, which he would need in spades for this to work.  
  
God was withholding the rest of his name until it was time. He could feel it. Every piece of his escape was drifting to him, like boxes to Crusoe, and it was fitting that the name was withheld until he was ready. Relly. Relli? Surelli… He tasted names as he’d seen fine men taste wines, rolling them about on his tongue. He was close.  
  
Finally, he had enough bottles and enough courage and an afternoon off. He wasn’t going to burn all his bridges yet. It took him awhile to find the proper spot – somewhere he wouldn’t be recognized, with people low-class enough not to chase him off, but high-class enough to throw away their wages. The street corner he eventually found seemed to smell of new money, the people walking past all very careful to show off the clean, well-made clothes they could afford, while being painfully aware of how shabby they would look at the Regency.   
  
He hadn’t been able to practice the voice properly, except in his head. The forcefulness of Poundstone, the charm of Barker, and the exoticism of the Italian accent meshed perfectly in his fantasies, but he was afraid that an Irish squeak was all that would emerge. But he had to do this right. This one time.  
  
He stepped up to a young couple, chaperone a few paces behind. The girl had fine eyes the color of brandy, the boy an open, honest face, and hair that was thinning at the temples and receding under his hat. They looked startled, but not offended as he approached them.   
  
“Bellissima signorinia, senior, good day, good day. Forgive-a the intrusion, but I was wondering if I might be off some assistance to two such-a young people of quality.” The voice that came out was startling, because it somehow wasn’t his. The girl blushed a little, turning her parasol in a coy manner she clearly knew was fetching, while the boy looked both cautious an intrigued.  
  
“And you are, good sir?”  
  
“I? I am Adolfo Pirelli, at-a your service, signor.”   
  
And inside his head, Danny O’Higgins almost laughed. The name had appeared. And he was home free. No one named Adolfo Pirelli would ever live and die, forgotten, in a garret in Fleet Street. He kissed the woman’s hand and the sun came out from behind a cloud to shatter against the fountain in the nearby park.


End file.
